A Moscow court has refused to cancel the results of mayoral elections won by incumbent Sergey Sobyanin in which the anti-corruption activist came second.

Aleksey Navalny filed a lawsuit soon after the Moscow Elections
Commission announced the results of the poll. Sobyanin got over
51 percent of votes and won in the first round. The main
complaint was that the media was giving more coverage to the
incumbent during the campaign.

In addition, Navalny’s team submitted almost a thousand
procedural complaints that had to be passed to district courts.
In them Navalny pointed at numerous alleged violations committed
before and during the election. In particular, he highlighted the
distribution of free food to pensioners that could be considered
as bribing voters by the team of the acting mayor. Moscow
pensioners received presents from city hall in connection with
the Day of Moscow (celebrated on the first weekend of the Fall),
and technically was not connected with Sergey Sobyanin’s election
campaign.

Navalny, known for his anti-corruption blog, and as a staunch
opponent of the parliamentary majority party United Russia, came
second with over 27 percent of the vote. He ran for the rightist
party RPR-PARNAS, while Sobyanin ran as an independent, despite
being a long-time and high placed member of United Russia.

The activist claimed that in reality the incumbent received less
than 50 percent of vote and thus a runoff election should be
held. The lawsuit was filed before Sobyanin’s inauguration and
Navalny wanted it stopped, but a Moscow Court refused his request
and Sobyanin was sworn in on September 12.

Before the mayoral poll was held Navalny was sentenced to five
years in prison over a large-scale graft committed in 2009 when
the activist was working as a voluntary aide to the governor of
the Kirov Region. He was not immediately put in custody and was
allowed to run as the sentence will only come in force after the
court considers his appeal.

On Friday Navalny wrote in his twitter that the court session on
his appeal was scheduled for October 9.